You’ll never know where bubblegum music might pop
up next. Take for instance XTC, the quintessential “English Countryside”
pop band lead by Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding. After releasing numerous
shimmering, hook-laden pop albums and failing to crack the US market,
Partridge & Moulding (along with their MVP Dave Gregory) released 25
O’Clock in 1985, a tribute to their favorite psychedelic groups
of the late 60’s. Performing under the name Dukes Of Stratosphere,
Partridge and Co. took their encyclopedic knowledge of the genre and
conjured six new classic songs (and followed that up with 10 more gems in
1987's Psonic Psunspot both collected on the Chips From The
Chocolate Fireball CD). Throw these tunes on your iPod with the Beatles,
Strawberry Alarm Clock, Tomorrow, and The Move and you’ll never figure out
that the Dukes were ‘87 and not ’67.

Well, you can’t be too careful about these
things. Safely back from their psychedelic trip, XTC enjoyed a resurgence of sorts
(the Todd Rundgren produced Skylarking helped) and, understandably, wanted
to stretch their homage streak to include another late-60's genre.

However, when Andy presented an idea to “Dukes” the
classic bubblegum era with an album choc full of songs inspired by the
Monkees, Ohio Express and Tommy James, their label, Virgin, didn't chew it
up. After two more pop-perfect releases ('Oranges & Lemons' and 'Nonsuch'),
XTC tangled with Virgin over their limiting contract and pitiful royalty
rates. For the next decade, Andy & Colin were in virtual retirement. No
XTC, no gum. Read on.

AP: So those are all musical styles I feel
completely at ease working with. There are a lot that I haven't got into
that I would feel completely at ease working with. Bubblegum music, I think
I have a huge debt to bubblegum music.

CO: Could you name an artist, like just off the top
of your head?

AP: Oh. just all things like a band named the
Equals in England. I don't know if you ever got to hear them. They were
originally two white guys and three black guys and the one black fellow that
stood in the middle painted half his body white so there were two and a half
of each color in the band. They played these really banal, kind of giddy and
exciting youth club kind of things. They had some really huge hits in
England but I guess they didn't come over the Atlantic. They were like
bubblegum ska. They were very direct. As soon as you put an Equals record,
there was an instant party. People like the Equals. Oh, who was who did that
"Yummy Yummy"? The Ohio Express? Lemon Pipers, although they were
sort of at the psychedelic end of bubble gum. "Mellow Yellow"
meets a “Quick Joey Small” or "Mony Mony" meets almost
anything by the early Troggs. You know, it transcends or descends below all
expectations and thus it comes out in another dimension somewhere. It goes
faster than the speed of light ale and bursts through into the banal zone. I
have a huge debt to bubblegum music. I love it.

Karen
O'Brien did an interview with Andy Partridge for The Independent on
Sunday, published on September 6, 1998:

[In
1993] Partridge had presented a new project, songs he had written as homage
to the bubblegum-pop bands of the late Sixties to early Seventies. He felt
the idea was blissfully simple: "I wanted Virgin to say that they'd
bought this entire back-catalogue from this imaginary label called Zither.
They said, 'So you go on Top of the Pops and play one of these songs?' I
said, 'No, this is a fake historical document!' So they said, 'Okay, we get
a young band and dress them up in early Seventies clothes?' I said 'No, no!'
They just didn't get it." Cue much shaking of pony-tailed heads.

The
Zither project was to have been “nicely banal, pitched around 1970, a
dozen tracks about sex. . .” Three of the songs have been
released in one form or another. “Cherry In Your Tree” (originally
intended to be performed by “The Captain Cooks”) was released on the
children's album Carmen Sandiego Out Of This World in April 1994.
“Candy Mine” was released on a single Andy Partridge did for John
Flansburgh's Hello CD of the Month Club in November 1994. “Standing In For
Joe”, released on Wasp Star (Apple Venus Volume 2), was originally
intended for the bubblegum album. And one of the fictional band names
intended for the project, Knights In Shining Karma, was used as the title of
a song released on Apple Venus Volume 1.

Some
of the other fictional bands to have been recorded for the project include
the following:

Some of the songs to have been included on the project include the following:

Lolly Let's Suck It And SeeMy Red AeroplaneCherry in Your TreeCandy MineJelly BabyStanding In For JoeI'm The KaiserVisit to the DoctorCave GirlAll Aboard for Bubble Land

Virgin did not take that
seriously, either. These bubblegum songs included such Andy Partridge
compositions as "All Aboard for Bubble Land", "Candymine"
(demo version released on Andy Partridge EP), "Cave Girl",
"Cherry in Your Tree" (released on the Carmen Sandiego compilation
CD), "It's Snowing Angels" (demo version released on Window Box),
and "Visit to the Doctor", as well as Colin's "Don't Come
Crying to Me."

The band names Andy thought up, not necessarily just for the bubblegum
project, include: Ancient Grease, Anonymous Bosch, The Brighton Peers,
Cake's Progress, The Captain Cooks (which was meant for "Cherry in Your
Tree"), The Four Posters, Funnel of Love, The Herbert Fountains, Irving
Merlin, Isambard Kingdom Necessary on a Bicycle, Jellyache, Kitchener's
Sink, The Lollipopes, The Periwig Pack, The Piccadilly Circus Tent Rip
Repair Company, The Rubber Ducks, Sopwith Caramel, The Tweedledeens, and The
Twelve Flavours of Hercules.

And what of a bubblegum pop project that XTC had
cooked up over the hiatus, in the same vein as their pseudonymous band, The
Dukes of Stratosphear?

"Christ!" says Moulding, "I think that was the last straw
with Virgin." He believes their "little twee vignette," all
in the name of fun for the Swindon boys, was an idea that illustrated how
Virgin and XTC had not been on the same page. Rabid fans will, for now at
least, have to settle for XTC's psychedelic alter egos, the Dukes.

P.7 ‘Pop Goes The Bubblegum’

From ‘The Little Express’ (Thanks June & Peter!)

Issue 35 Winter 92/93

“Both Andy and Dave have for some time been
courting the idea of doing another ‘alter-ego’ project along the lines
of “The Dukes”. This time the plan was to hind behind a number of
different make-believe groups, on a compilation of “Bubblegum Music” . .
. “the most unloved musical form, the sugar-coated underachieving child of
the Pop World. We never really intended it to be an album, we thought about
doing an EP similar to “25 O’Clock”. I like the idea of anonymous
music, you can’t pass by it, cause it may be us!

This particular idea only got so far as
‘talking’ with the Record Company. One basic stumbling block was the
band’s original concept for complete anonymity. Under such circumstances
the worry of it quickly ending up in the bargain bins (particularly if the
artwork looked authentic) perhaps influenced the company’s luke warm
response.

However, it may still happen and one wonders what
kind of magic such an album would weave.”

Another idea that we hope will eventually see the
light of day is XTC’s desire to record some “Bubblegum” songs. (Chris
Twomey has heard some of them and was very impressed!) “They’ve all been
written,” says Andy, “I’ve finished the whole bubblegum album, but I
don’t know if it’ll ever be made.”

P.1 “I’ve heard all of Andy’s bubblegum stuff
and this one is my favorite . . .”

From ‘The Little Express’ (Thanks
June & Peter!)

Issue 37 Winter 1994

David Yazbeck, a musician/producer , who Andy has
worked with in the past, is currently musical director for a young folks TV
show that comes out of New York. “Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?”
is a half-hour mixture of fun and (geographic) education. The programme has
a resident group called “Rockapella” and Yazbeck produced the show’s
first successful CD release. Andy was conveniently located in N.Y. when Dave
called him to see if XTC would be interested in “guesting” on the second
CD for the show. Andy suggested one of his bubblegum songs, and “Cherry In
Your Tree” was pulled from the pack. “I’ve heard all of Andy’s
bubblegum stuff and this one was my favorite,” said Dave.

The song (which was credited to XTC) is one of two
“guest appearances”: the other is by “They Might Be Giants.” Colin
was invited to join the session, and a good time was had by all. “It was
quite a happening session,” recalls Colin, “it really didn’t need much
on it; we got a cello player to do some one liners.” Andy agreed. “It
came out really well, we used ‘They Might Be Giants’ drummer Brian
Docherty, who hada great swing
feel; he and Colin played live together and I redid my piece. It’s just
the three of us plus a cello and some vocal harmonies.”

Dave Yazbeck, who is a long time fan of the band,
was thrilled to be working in the studio with at least two thirds of XTC.

“It was very cool for me because I got to fill in
for Dave (Gregory) on keyboards and stuff, that was a little fantasy
moment.” He also commented that “being a musician and XTC fan, I know
there is a huge following for the band in music circles, and it was hard not
to tell all my friends that they couldn’t just drop by the studio like
they usually do, because there would have been a mob of people all the
time.”

Dave points out that “Rockapella has a higher
profile to a certain type of audience than XTC but we are hoping that the
XTC song will garner some radio airplay on certain stations.”

They had a bit of trouble with one of the lines in
the song which originally was “making love with you.” Andy whipped his
culinary talents into gear and the song now cooks to “baking love to
you.”

The record should come out around March on the
children’s label Zoom Express, the title is Carmen Sandiego: Out of this
World. Check the kids bin.

P.2. Still Chewing
”All the tracks exist, and all the bands exist, I’m very tempted to do
it from home after being very pleased with the quality of Martin Newell’s
record” . . . Andy, on being asked about the destiny of his bubblegum
music."

AP: “I have a really perverse goal. I’d like to
be a record label and every band on that label, but without anybody knowing.
It’s an idea I was speaking to Virgin about last year, a bubblegum sampler
with twelve bands on a mythical label from 1970. They didn’t like the idea
of the historical document. I had all the songs written and all the bands,
and they wouldn’t do it. One song did surface on the Carmen Sandiego sound
track (Zoon Express/BMG). It’s called “Cherry In Your Tree,” by The
Captain Cooks,” but the lyric was a bit more double entendre.”

TC: Are the James and the Giant Peach and the
“bubble gum” demos ever going to crop up on a CD?

AP: Possibly sometime in the future. I don’t
think the ‘James and the Giant Peach’ songs are going to be re-jigged
with other lyrics and stuff. I can’t get them mentally unlocked from the
(Giant Peach) story, so I think they’ll just stay as they are. Little
still-born things that were never done. And the bubble gum demos will
probably stay as they are, although funny enough, I’ve actually lost a
couple of them. But I don’t think either of those projects are going to be
done; but they may get released on CD in some form down the line. Maybe
we’ll do something through Idea. We still want to do the official bootleg
album and we also may do a ‘Dead Projects’ album as well that could
contain those.”

He
(Andy Partridge) loved
music and soon became fascinated with The Monkees. He won a "Draw A
Monkee" competition in their fan magazine, cut his hair like Peter
Tork's and took to wearing fringed jackets and love beads. He carried an
acoustic guitar around with him, even though he could barely play a note . .
.

Serene Dominic recently sent me a link to a near
all-encompassing interview with Andy Partridge for the May 11, 2000 edition of
Phoenix NewTimes. The completely fascinating interview may be found
here and I've stuck the gum referenced section of the article below.

But Partridge's 1993 brainstorm -- that XTC pretend to be 12
different bubblegum bands on a fake historical retrospective from the early '70s
-- knocked the record label for a loop.

"The liner notes would say these are the greatest hits of all
the bands that recorded for the Zither label, which was a make-believe label. We
had all the names -- The Four Posters, The Sopwith Caramels, Anonymous Bosh, Kit
and Caboodle. The best one was The Twelve Flavors of Hercules," howls Partridge.
"And all of the lyrics were heavily sexual. There was a song called "Lolly (Suck
It and See),' and there was another one called "Visit to the Doctor,' which was
vaguely molesting. The cleanest one was called "Cherry in Your Tree,' which we
eventually got to record for an American kids' album called Out of This World
With Carmen Santiago. It's the same crass song with a few cleaned-up lyrics.

"So I played Virgin the demos and they just didn't get it," he
recalls, semi-ruefully. "Their jaws just hung open like that scene in The
Producers when people see Springtime for
Hitler the first time. There was a horrible silence for what seemed like
an hour. And the project didn't get done and the songs atrophied on the back
burner."

One has to mourn the loss of such randy morsels as "Candy
Mine," "Cave Girl" and especially "I Am the Kaiser," which Partridge happily
performed on the phone without prodding, a rock 'n' roll clicking rhythm like
"Yummy Yummy Yummy" sung in a crass redneck, country-and-western voice.